


Chimera Rising

by rvst



Series: We Three Idiots [9]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-23 12:36:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6116683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvst/pseuds/rvst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Major Danny Hollis woke up to her phone ringing. Actually ringing, no cute music or embarrassing recorded message. Her damn phone was actually freaking ringing. Which meant that her time away was over and there was work to be done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Major Danny Hollis woke up to her phone ringing. Actually ringing, no cute music or embarrassing recorded message. Her damn phone was actually freaking ringing. Which meant that her time away was over and there was work to be done. She cracked open her eyes and was greeted by a mess of dark hair. The phone rang and vibrated and generally demanded her attention.

Slight problem.

The hair blocking her view belonged to her wife. Who was heavier than she looked. This was only relevant as the damn vampire had shifted in the night to cling to Danny like a koala bear. Artemis only knew where the hell her other wife had ended up but Danny tried to take waking up in the morning as an adventure in human contortion rather than three restless sleepers sharing one bed.

Danny’s good nature lasted until her phone rang out, and began anew as she expected with fear growing in the pit of her stomach. She needed to be back at base quickly then.

Carmilla was going to be pissed all morning, but Danny still used her right arm to push the other woman off her body, waking her in a mild panic. Carmilla growled at whatever was interrupting her beauty sleep. Danny pulled at her left arm, presuming that on top of it was where Laura had ended up during the night. Shoulder hurting, Danny freed herself to the chorus of groaning, unhappy women that she carefully removed herself from.

Meaning Danny fell backward out of the bed, narrowly missing smashing her head on the beside table. Carmilla snorted while one of them tossed Danny’s offensive phone down to her. Danny would bet on Laura, the violent one when her sleep was interrupted.

Apprehensively, yet filled with an infuriating sense of duty, Danny answered the call.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Danny’s arms burned, though she wasn’t going to give in to their demands for rest. Focusing on keeping count inside her head, she almost missed Carmilla calling from the top step, informing Danny of her breakfast options. Hopefully breakfast made by the vampire wouldn’t include a hearty dose of plasma for once. Carmilla didn’t think about it twice half the time, casually adding a tablespoon to everything she cooked for her partners.

Danny didn’t want to think about how much human blood she had consumed over the years, her stomach churning at the very thought. Laura never seemed to mind, so Danny kept the revulsion to herself.

Finishing her set of push-ups, Danny carefully patted the sweat from her body with her dark blue towel. The last thing she needed was either Laura or Carmilla getting distracted when she absolutely had to be at work within the hour.

She raced upstairs to their shower, pausing to kiss her wives despite their wildly different reactions to being woken up at six in the morning when they didn’t need to be. Laura, for example, looked like she would like nothing more than to rampage through the entire Special Forces base until she found the asshole taking her wife away during her week off.

When she came back into their kitchen, Danny had her uniform on, though her jacket hung open and her boots weren’t laced up properly. She froze in the archway, mouth open to ask something that flew out of her mind when she caught sight of Laura glaring at her from their modest breakfast bar. Carmilla didn’t seem to notice, slurping happily at her blood smoothie while she put the finishing touches on the healthy monstrosity Danny would hopefully live to drink for her breakfast.

“You’ve developed a personal vendetta against me being clean?” Danny ventured, putting on her best charming grin to hide her unease. Laura put a bite of her from-a-bottle pancakes into her mouth without looking to maintain her glare. Danny shifted with discomfort, the silence oppressive on her post-workout high. “Water usage issues?”

Carmilla snorted indelicately, smirking over her shoulder at Danny as Laura gave up her serious face to grin along.

“Anything you want to tell me, darling dearest wife?” At that Carmilla gasped and directed a scandalised look at Laura. “Oh shut up, Carm. I am trying to do my job here.”

Danny tilted her head to the side, “top story tonight: Woman Has Shower, Then Leaves For Place Of Employment. More news at eleven?”

Laura huffed, folding her arms and glaring at her pile of pancakes. Carmilla poured Danny’s green terribleness into her travel cup and brandished it at her wife like it was poison. “You disgust me, Xena,” she added for good measure, like she did every single time Danny had a liquid breakfast.

Danny kissed her before she took a sip, knowing from experience that she would be basically toxic to them both after anything approaching this level of good for a human body passed through her lips. “Thank you, dead girl. What story is making you mad at me Laura?”

Laura turned her tablet toward Danny, angling it so her wife could see the screen. “I have seventeen emails about an animal attack around three and a half hours south of here, and exactly none of them think it was a normal animal. Care to comment, Major Hollis?”

Danny caught herself halfway between a burst of pride and a military issue confidentiality bristling in the face of an inquisitive journalist. “Well, Mrs Hollis, I can’t comment on that but I have the weirdest feeling I might have something for you later today,” Danny teased, straightening her back as Carmilla wrapped her arm around her waist from behind.

“That means ‘take your top off and we’ll talk’, Cupcake,” Carmilla explained, dragging up one side of Danny’s shirt suggestively. Danny squirmed her way out of her wife’s arms, twisting to glare down at her. “What?”

“It does not, you mean ass,” she argued, modestly yanking her shirt back down. Laura giggled at the pair of them, taking another bite of her breakfast when they turned to glare at her in unison. “I’ll see what I can tell you and report back tonight, alright?”

“Can you take your top off anyway?” Carmilla asked, slinking her way over to Laura’s side while Danny drained her demon drink. “I believe it might help your case.”

Laura allowed Carmilla’s sudden need to nuzzle into her side, sharing an amused glance with Danny as the taller woman bent down to lace her boot up properly. “Something bothering you?”

Carmilla froze as Danny stood up and stretched her back muscles. “Uh, I’m pregnant?”

Carmilla said it so sheepishly and so earnestly that Danny’s brain short circuited for a second before it rebooted. Laura jabbed Carmilla in the ribs with her elbow, eliciting a yowl, a choice she regretted immediately as Carmilla’s mouth was directly next to her ear. “Not cool,” she whined, holding her ear and squeezing her eyes shut. Carmilla chuckled while she shifted her weight in clear discomfort at their collective attentions still being fully focused on her and her affectionate nature rearing its cuddly head.

“Wine and cheese on the roof tonight?” Danny directed her words at Carmilla, delighting in the way her wife’s face lit up. “Excellent, now kiss for luck, apparently there’s a monster waiting for me at work.”

  
  


 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Danny’s boots fit.

It was a small thing, but with the scarcity of clothing for women of her height and shoe size, small things mattered. They fit her perfectly and were extremely comfortable, Special Forces wanted to keep her. This tiny detail proved it more than anything else.

The long, sterile hallways of the newly-constructed forward base reminded Danny of a hospital. The dull grey of the walls and the cost-effective flooring kept her mind free from distraction despite the continuous low hum of people talking and existing that never really went away on base. The noise of a group of young recruits, barely out of boot camp, echoed down the hallway as if they weren’t aware their commanding officer was on her way.

Danny would have to fix that, no way were her kids going to embarrass themselves if any of Danny’s superiors showed up unannounced. She grumbled to herself while she closed the remaining distance to the plywood door that should have been tightly shut but was instead wide open and allowing a direct view into the common area between her unit’s three bedrooms. The sound was escaping too, and Danny paused just out of sight to compose her annoyance into a pinpoint of anger to use against them all.

There was only six of them, a trial that would be expanded if it could prove itself worthy of the higher-ups’ expectations. Danny was determined to face whatever mission her superiors could throw at her and the five soldiers who were impossibly younger than her. As such, she held them to fairly high standards.

They didn’t hear her until they could see her, shiny boots leading though her bright red hair caught attention like nothing else.

Private Ng was sat atop Private Acone’s broad shoulders, the young man parading her around the room while the other’s hooted and hollered around them both. Danny sighed before she had to put on her authority hat, they were excitable and occasionally unprofessional, but they were hers. She had a stack of papers in her hands and the others were shouting their congratulations for Koralia Ng, the smallest member of the unit.

Danny folded her arms as the group gradually started to notice her presence, one by one until they were all snapped to attention in a perfect row before her, Private Ng gracefully leaping from the hulking Alex Acone’s shoulders, landing with a thump that made Danny wince for her poor ankles.

Lieutenant Primo Salazar stood at the end of the row, wincing right along with her for Koralia’s poor feet and ankles, it would be his responsibility to get them checked out for severe damage and Danny knew he harboured a severe distaste for the entire medical field. Danny pointedly glanced at Private Caron Merrick, the unit’s ranged weaponry expert, and subtly indicated that they would be expected to take on any first-aid the unit might need. They nodded, barely more than a twitch.

“Private Ng, celebrating?” Danny asked, delaying their punishment to let the stress settle in properly. If they were going on their first real mission, they needed to be more disciplined than this. Koralia went bright red, and held the papers out to Danny’s waiting hands. Danny’s eyes widened at the top sheet, proudly declaring Koralia Ng as ‘Doktor der Naturwissenschaften’. Danny doubted the university would agree that what Koralia studied was remotely ‘natural’ or ‘scientific’ for that matter, but she was proud nonetheless. “Dr Ng?”

She got a shrug in return, “your discretion, Major.”

“Good work, Private,” Danny praised as she handed the paperwork back, turning a somewhat furious glare at the rest of the unit as Private Ng raced back to the room she shared with Private Karim. Legs twitched underneath Merrick and Acone, betraying their urge to back away from their Major’s anger. “What do we think would have happened if literally anyone but me had walked in on that little display?”

Other unit commanders yelled, some shouted themselves hoarse each and every day. Major Danny Hollis got disappointed.

Their spines straightened immediately, though their faces fell from the carefully crafted neutrality they knew was required. Danny felt the regret punch them all in the guts, and waved them off their high-strung positions.

“Close the damn door next time,” she ordered, giving a pointed look over her shoulder. Merrick took this as a silent command and was across the room, closing the door, and back with shoulders practically level with Acone’s in less than three seconds. Danny decided this was good enough. “We have work to do.”

Lieutenant Salazar’s muscles coiled in a brutal reminder of the ‘work’ Major Hollis had them do before her week of leave. Her brutal pace kept par with the U.S. Army Rangers course, and she expected all of them to keep up with her for at least the first portions of it. There was nothing he wanted less than to go through that again so soon, and Private Acone nearly passed out on the cardio portions. The man was a mountain of muscle, running wasn’t really his thing. “Work?”

The rest of the unit let out a breath that their Lieutenant had asked for them. ‘Work’ could also mean endless drilling with their weapons, or studying hundreds of pages of mythological lore, or ignoring her besotted blushing whenever she got a call from one of her two wives. All were equally difficult.

Danny held out her tablet, giving it to Lieutenant Salazar to read and pass down the line. “Pearrat Crossing, permanent population of under a thousand, a lot of people rolling through on the scenic route. It’s around four hours by car from here, and they have some kind of monster killing people in the surrounding woodlands.”

“How big is it?” Private Ng asked, bouncing on her toes as she waited her turn.

“How many people have died thus far?” Private Caron Merrick cut in, glaring at Ng and her excitement. Danny held up her hands to stop the fight before it started. “And ‘monster’ is exceedingly vague, Major.”

“Well, monster is what we have so get you kits together. Ng, get a copy of the bigger than a large cat section of the archives. Karim, nets and explosives please. Everyone else, take the rest of the morning for yourselves, Lieutenant Salazar will inform you of where to be to roll out. And we’re four fatalities in,” she added, making eye contact with Merrick.

Danny turned and left as quickly as she’d come, leaving the five on them to ravenously pick through the scant information she was able to give them.

She was heading back home, perks of authority. Hopefully Carmilla hadn’t started her overly pretentious hunting for expensive cheeses yet. She would be monumentally pissed off if Danny came home with her news after she had put one tiny bit of work in.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Carmilla barely glanced up from her book as a red blur came flying through the front door and charged up the staircase. Though she returned her attention back to the page quickly, Carmilla unconsciously toyed with the black tungsten ring on her left hand as Danny thumped around upstairs.

Danny came bounding back down the stairs less than a minute later, one of their more practical backpacks in hand. She threw it against the still-open door and rushed over to the nice warm couch in front of the nice warm fire to ambush her completely innocent Carmilla with her kisses and grabbing hands. Carmilla let Danny’s fingers trail along her jawline, carefully closing her book and leaning into her wife.

Slipping an arm around Carmilla’s waist, Danny lifted her wife off the couch and pressed their bodies together, never once breaking the contact between their lips. Carmilla didn’t know what happened at the base, but complaining was the furthest thing from her mind.

Danny pulled back, visibly remembering she was apparently in a rush. As quickly as she was there, Carmilla felt the chill as Danny was gone. Off into the basement she went, leaving Carmilla to whine in the back of her throat at the sudden lack of contact.

“Why?” Carmilla yelled after her retreating wife. Danny didn’t give any indication that she heard her, and Carmilla huffed then followed down the stairs. “Danny Mircalla Hollis!”

“That’s Major Danny Mircalla Hollis to you!” Danny threw right back at her immediately. “And what?”

Carmilla watched as Danny rifled through their in-storage winter clothing until she pulled out Laura’s over-sized black beanie. Danny grinned triumphantly at Carmilla, wilfully ignoring the confusion plain on her face.

“Why are you back so soon?” Carmilla decided to go with the most important question. She couldn’t shut off the whisper in her mind that if she questioned the affectionate behaviour too much then Danny and Laura might stop. “And packing?”

Danny’s eyes slowly dropped to her own thigh where a semi-automatic pistol was strapped securely. “I am technically still working, I have to have this,” she explained slowly. Then she blushed. Carmilla raised an eyebrow, amused. “I wanted some stuff from home, we’re going away for a hunt and I need you both with me while I deal with my idiot children,” Danny rushed out in one breath. Carmilla blinked twice.

Carmilla shrugged and started back up the stairs. Towards the top, she turned to stare Danny down. “Fine, but while Laura might fit in a backpack, I definitely won’t.”

“That’s not what I meant,” growled Danny, kick-starting her feet into motion and giving chase to the fleeing vampire. “I can’t bring my wives on a mission, Carmilla!”

Carmilla grunted, “if you’re hunting something, Laura’s going to hunt you until she finds the story, she was itching for more about her monster before she left this morning. She’s going wherever you are whether you like it or not.”

Danny froze, hadn’t thought of that apparently. Carmilla grinned in victory, you hesitate, you lose. “You-”

Though she tried to argue, Danny was suddenly staring at the wall rather than Carmilla, the vampire long gone to pull together a bag for a potentially long trip away with her partners. She blurred back in to Danny’s vision, close enough to reach out and strangle, a tempting option if Danny though it would do one lick of good. “I am not staying here all by myself, so you’d better have room in that testosterone machine they have you driving.”

Danny sighed, and resolved to make a few calls on the road. Laura would be less annoyed if Danny informed her of the mission sooner rather than later, and Lieutenant Salazar needed orders for the long drive ahead of them all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Danny kept one hand tightly gripped on the government-issue steering wheel, keeping the government-issue car from crashing despite the best efforts of her wife. Carmilla didn’t care one bit about what happened to the damn car, so long as she could be with her perpetually missing wife as they crashed in a fireball. Carmilla was reasonably fireproof and she was quietly confident in her ability to poof them both out of the metal deathtrap before anything fatal happened. Which was why she was overly-enthused to be riding shotgun with one hand curled around the big, bad Major’s thigh while the other traced lazily over her abs.

In retrospect, Danny should have fought against her wife’s desire to come along adjacent to the mission with slightly more force. No wonder Laura was so giggly when they pulled away from the house, damn traitor knew Carmilla was in an affectionate phase.

“I think it’s a hydra,” Carmilla broke Danny out of her concentration, “all those teeth, has to have more than one head.”

Danny rolled her eyes, “why not a cerberus then? It has three whole heads,” she countered, strangling the whimper in the back of her throat before it could take flight. Carmilla’s wandering fingers drifted down to the top of her belt and Danny considered pulling over to stop the explosion waiting to happen.

Carmilla pouted then leaned forward to kiss her wife tenderly on the cheek. “We shall see, Xena, we shall see.”


	2. Chapter 2

The drive took the better part of the afternoon. Carmilla restrained herself just long enough for them to be too exposed even for her nonchalant attitude toward public displays of affection. Danny placed a placating hand on the back of Carmilla’s neck, massaging the tightly wound muscles there with enough pressure to make her wife moan.

“Now you’re on board with this?” Carmilla whined even as Danny removed herself from the car. Carmilla followed at a much slower pace and leaned against the hot metal of the car while Danny removed their bags from the trunk. “How dare you be this official and attractive while you’re working,” she complained, pulling her lower lip in between her teeth with a lecherous once-over of Danny’s body.

“If Lieutenant Salazar can keep to his schedule, then we have roughly two hours to get settled until the unit arrives,” explained Danny, tossing her own duffel bag over her shoulder, keenly aware of how it made her biceps strain against her already tight Special Forces shirt. “You can stay here and complain or come find some way to amuse yourself.”

Carmilla slammed the trunk shut and remained exactly where she was to watch Danny march into the hotel with authority. Convincing Danny to shrug off her official uniform in the oppressive heat was one of the top twenty most brilliant ideas Carmilla had ever been struck with. She reminded herself to take pictures, Laura would explode with jealousy and drop her work immediately once she saw what Carmilla was enjoying.

“You coming?” Danny called over her shoulder as she paused at the entrance.

Carmilla pushed off the car and slowly sauntered over to her wife. “Give it an hour, then we’ll talk,” she murmured while passing Danny.

“An,” Danny paused to swallow audibly, “an hour?”

Carmilla reached out to curl her fingers around Danny’s plain steel belt buckle, grazing against her skin with her nails. Danny inhaled sharply, allowing herself to be pulled up to the reception desk. She wondered how long it would take for her unit to notice she had brought her wife along on their first mission. As the receptionist’s eyes flew open upon seeing a giant, armed, and clearly military woman be dragged by the belt by a much smaller woman in a sheer dark shirt and impossibly tight black skinny jeans, Danny gave it five minutes after they arrived.

Weird news travelled fast in a small town. She’d spent more than enough time at Silas to know that. They would be labelled sex-crazed monsters within the hour.

“You’re paying for this later, kitty,” Danny snarled in Carmilla’s ear, knowing that leaning over her wife wasn’t exactly helping their case with the town. “A world of bad is coming your way.”

Carmilla didn’t respond verbally. Danny was roughly yanked until her hips were slamming into the desk, Carmilla’s hand gone as quickly as it came.

“May,” the receptionist’s eyes darted between the two of them, “may I help you ladies? Honeymoon suite?”

Carmilla threw her head back, laughing with reckless abandon while Danny resigned herself to two hours away from being an army officer.

“Major Danny Hollis,” the man sat up so fast she heard his spine crack, “and asshole wife.”

Carmilla’s grin was bright enough that Danny forgot why she was annoyed.

The man handed over their room key, an actual key, and three others. Danny nodded her thanks, allowed a teenager in a hotel uniform take their bags, and bent down to throw Carmilla on her shoulder. She gave a half-hearted salute to the receptionist and took off up the stairs, vampire complaining the entire way.

In for an inch and all that nonsense.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Lieutenant Primo Salazar was never late nor early. He was born on the exact same day the doctors predicted and the labour took the exact average estimated time to complete. When Major Danny Hollis ordered him to be at Pearrat Crossing at exactly 6PM with the unit, then that’s exactly when the five of them would arrive, not one minute earlier, not one minute later.

Private Alex Acone thought Salazar had a stick up his ass, but wisely kept this particular thought to himself. Sometimes he felt that Major Hollis could hear him think. She was married to a vampire and a nationally recognised minor hero, the woman had to have some kind of supernatural ability. Alex spent long nights up with Private Caron Merrick theorising how the hell a woman in her mid-twenties was recruited directly into her fairly high officer position with exactly no military experience.

Initially, they figured she was someone’s daughter, though this was proved incorrect after an extensive search of military records. Merrick eventually stumbled across the answer, with the Major’s file laying open on her desk as she added her monthly report to it. Words like ‘Summer Society’, ‘vampire’, and ‘double agent’ sprung out at them, screaming how little they should be trusting this woman.

Then they spent time under her command. Neither of them totally trusted her completely, that was hard with her living situation and her past hesitance with exterminating the supernatural element that posed a genuine threat. But they could deal, she fought a vampire and lived, wasn’t the worst leader, and seemed genuinely besotted with her wives rather than their initial assumption.

Caron and Alex were deeply ashamed when they had to admit neither Carmilla nor Laura were controlling the Major. They were grateful that they didn’t share their suspicions with anyone else.

Private Karim had promptly fallen asleep after they left, a heavy box of ammunition serving as her pillow. The others wisely left her to it.

They drew sticks to decide who had to wake their demolitions expert when Pearrat Crossing came into view. They pulled up to the only hotel in town and noted that the Major’s car was already present.

The local police, clearly only owning one cruiser on the verge of breaking down, drove by them slowly as they entered the hotel. None of them looked at the two men directly, though later they could give a full and detailed report to Major Hollis on them both, right down to the colour of their eyes.

For the first time, Lieutenant Salazar considered that perhaps it wasn’t the locals that called them in to deal with the beast.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
Danny felt Carmilla’s eyes drilling into her back as she re-dressed. The lazy cat wouldn’t be rising from bed for the rest of the day, barring Laura arriving in town and needing guidance to their room. Then she would be up and downright helpful until Prey the Second was safely inside her little nest, ripe for the picking.

“We aren’t having kids,” Carmilla groaned. Danny turned to raise her eyebrows in mild alarm, her braided hair whipping her in the neck as it swung around. What she saw was a very self-satisfied vampire, so she rolled her eyes and stopped taking her seriously immediately. Only thing for it. “The ones you already have are taking up too much of your time! Can you imagine what it would be like if they couldn’t feed and bathe themselves?”

“You’ve had me alone for hours,” Danny shot back, forcing Carmilla to groan and thrown her head back into her luxurious pile of pillows. “They need a plan of action for tomorrow morning and I have to give that to them. They’re being asked to risk their lives for a creature we can’t even identify yet, they’re owed some kind of stability before the insane hells we live in are brought down on their heads.”

Carmilla sat up, allowing the soft sheets to fall from her naked body. Danny didn’t take notice, too transfixed by the transitional nature of lacing up her boots. Carmilla had until she was done to talk to her wife, Major Hollis would be in control in short moments, and with her, came a shift in viewpoint that led to Carmilla being a potential threat and Laura a nuisance to military order.

“You know, our marriages aren’t exactly legally binding,” she teased, causing Danny to roll her eyes. “We could be free of all the insanity in a moment and all it would cost us is your sense of righteousness and duty, and probably Laura as an entire person.”

“At least she’s a relatively small person, very easy to misplace,” Danny threw back, a sudden sense of loneliness overcoming her heart. “She’s going to show up soon, right?”

“What exactly is your plan for when you have to do one of these things on your own?”

Danny shrugged, finishing her boots with a satisfied smile. “I’ve dealt with having neither of you before, and I can do it again. The work is worth it.”

With that, Major Hollis left her wife alone to stare in shock at the closed door.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
If the unit noticed she’d brought a vampire stowaway along to Pearrat Crossing, they didn’t mention it. Though Danny knew without having to dedicate too much consideration that this ignorant peace would last as long as it took for either Carmilla to get bored, or for Laura to inevitably decide that she couldn’t possibly put one of her employees up against Danny and instead elected to come and conduct the investigative piece herself.

Lieutenant Salazar did his job, they were all present, well-organised, and in somewhat good spirits. Danny noted that Private Karim had a haze settled around her that only came with sleep, but she elected to ignore it.

“The latest body was found within walking distance of town,” Danny paused to pitch her thumb toward the wooded area west of town through the window of the Lieutenant’s room, “the one before that was further east of here. We’ve elected to start figuring a way to hunt it down before we y’know, go get ourselves killed.”

Danny stopped to flick her eyes around the room, stopping on Private Acone, the only member of the unit to have actually read the handbook they were almost jokingly given at the end of boot camp and basic training. Not even Salazar had read the entire thing, and Danny unknowingly agreed with the giant blond man that the Lieutenant had a flagpole up his rear. She motioned for him to say what was on his mind, Alex took a calming breath before speaking.

“Procedure, however vague in this case, dictates that we should identify what we’re up against. There’s a lot of big and killer beasts all over the supernatural world,” he finished, trailing off with a curious glance towards Private Koralia Ng. He visibly wondered why she wasn’t bringing this up, though she did speak next.

“I would need to see the body and the scene before I could even start to guess with any kind of accuracy. There’s just too many of them to say with what we have thus far.”

Danny grinned internally, they might not all die before the end of the week. It cheered her immeasurably that she had picked competent people to fill her unit.

“Great! I want everyone ready by seven, Lieutenant,” Danny ordered softly, giving them the opportunity to figure out sleeping arrangements on their own. “Do not give us a bad name while staying here, the locals are already suspicious.”

Then she was gone, probably back to whoever had left the faint bite mark beneath her right ear, no one was willing to ask which wife it was.

“Fifty says it’s the vampire,” Merrick broke the silence the Major left them stewing in.

“I can still hear you!” Major Hollis yelled through the door, causing the supposedly trained soldiers to fall off their various perches all at once, thumping to the floor in unison.

Lieutenant Salazar took on a downright cruel gleam in his eyes. There would be push-ups and jumping jacks before dawn on the roof of the three-storey hotel, punishment for gambling was taken very seriously.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
The scene of the crime, if an animal attack could be called a crime rather than an unfortunate accident, was barely beyond the tree line. Karim and Merrick had their fearsome rifles clutched in capable hands, taking the lead in case the beast was still nearby. Danny followed behind them, sidearm drawn and eyes keenly scanning the treetops without lingering for more than a moment on any particular spot. Koralia and Acone were unarmed, carrying the equipment they would need to gather evidence.

Lieutenant Salazar was left to run interference in town, either with the inhabitants of Pearrat Crossing, or far more troubling, if Major Hollis’ other wife showed up. He was not looking forward to dealing with the journalist, though he counted his lucky stars that his commanding officer hadn’t asked him to tend to the vampire. Crossing her once was more than enough for his lifetime.

The local police, which amounted to a father and son team that reeked of corruption to all seven of the outsiders, had already removed the male body from the scene. Danny tried to be angry at them, but there was every indication that predators other than their unknown beast lived in these woods, she couldn’t fault their decision, though it rankled with her newly-minted Doktor.

There was blood on the trees, splattered high and wide. The man had probably bled to death before he was torn apart and partially eaten. That was a small comfort.

At least it was until Danny noticed the scorch marks on the ground and the burnt away underbrush. The monster liked its meals cooked. She couldn’t decide if this was helpful information or not. “It either has help or it can create fire by itself somehow.”

Private Ng hummed in agreement. Useful information. “That narrows it down to creatures that can enslave people, creatures that can be controlled, or fire-breathing monstrosities,” she listed, a sudden spring in her step at the thought of doing actual work for once.

Private Caron Merrick snorted. “You forgot monsters that are on fire all the time.”

“And werewolves!” Karim crowed as she advanced around the area to set up a perimeter. “Always a possibility for werewolves!”

“She just wants to make friends with them,” Acone muttered to Koralia, though Danny heard it all the same. She needed to get on her profile reports on the lot of them, Danny predicted friction between Karim and Merrick sooner rather than later. Probably when they met a werewolf.

“Can we hold off on the betting pool until your boss can’t hear you, please?” Danny begged, she didn’t want it to get out how lenient she planned to be with her unit and gambling in her view wasn’t a great way to start their first mission. “You literally have your own damn rooms that I won’t be monitoring to do that kind of shit in.”

They all avoided her eyes, sensing just how annoyed she was and wisely setting about their damn jobs.

“Better.”

Danny’s stern outer appearance was utterly ruined when her phone started singing about birthday sex, she was going to murder Carmilla when she got back into town. The entire unit flushed red, though Danny managed to keep some of her composure long enough to answer the damn thing. It was entirely possibly that Lieutenant Salazar had gotten the idea that her vampire wife was a target for extermination. Again.

Squeezing her eyes shut and turning away from the soon-to-be giggling soldiers, Danny answered the phone.

“Something had better be on fire,” she snapped, not giving Carmilla even the slightest chance to get off whatever witty bullshit she was about to throw at Danny.

“Technically this bookstore was on fire at some point in the near past, does that count?” Carmilla replied, seeming to not take notice of Danny’s terse tone. “Also, it smells like a really exotic butcher inside so you might want to round up the Planeteers and get down here, Cap,” she added. Danny could taste her self-satisfied smirk.

Danny nearly cracked the screen of her phone, inhaling sharply in frustration. Carmilla laughed, long and hard, then hung up without so much as a goodbye.

She could feel four sets of eyes pinned to her back, waiting for the explosion to happen. There was no way the Major was as calm and easygoing as she appeared. That would be ridiculous.

“Acone, Karim, stay here and gather anything that could help determine what we’re up against,” Private Ng made a short noise of protest, “Ng, trust me, you’ll want to be coming with me. Merrick?”

“Yes, Major?” Merrick replied immediately. Danny appreciated their approach to order, always refreshing when compared with the usual herding of cats she had to pull off.

“I’m going to need perimeter security,” she explained in lieu of an actual order. With a heavy sigh, she set off towards the town, trusting that her two soldiers would follow.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Carmilla was long gone by the time the three of them arrived at the burnt-out bookstore, though Danny didn’t really expect her to stay and announce herself to the small unit who once tried to kill her. She didn’t handle the situation well, bursting in on supernatural-fighting soldiers with fangs bared and claws out, but was still confused and dismayed by the youngsters.

Danny made a mental note to get Carmilla to stop calling the five of them ‘youngsters’. Koralia was older than Laura, Danny reminded herself with a shudder.

“Merrick, go around back. Ng, cover me,” she gave out orders with a practised ease. Just another Adonis Hunt with her sisters. Nothing to be scared of, the beast certainly didn’t breath fire or anything scary like that. “And if anyone asks?”

The two of them shared an amused glance. Merrick answered, “we found this on our own and no one is even married in this unit. Yes, ma’am!”

Danny nodded seriously as they slowly took off around the back of the building. Private Ng took up a position behind her and Danny braced her shoulder, forcing the door open.

Immediately she wanted to throw up. Behind her, Private Ng didn’t seem especially bothered by the smell. Danny forced her breakfast back down her throat, raising a hand to direct Koralia to search the room. The fire hadn’t been cleaned up after, charred books and furniture remained though there were signs that the building had been looted. Weirdly, Danny couldn’t see any signs of teenagers using the bookstore as a hangout. No empty bottle, no smoked cigarettes, and no graffiti.

“Major?” Private Ng called from further inside the bookstore. Danny slowly wandered over, catching sight of the local law enforcement pulling up outside their hotel. “You should come and see this.”

Danny rolled her eyes, her most educated soldier had a talent for stating the obvious.

Koralia was standing in front of a suspiciously new wall-sized poster, staring at it with disbelief written all over her face. “I wonder where the smell could possibly be coming from?”

She was a little funny, Danny had to admit, though standoffish. Private Ng reminded Danny of LaFontaine sometimes, and it worried her to no end.

Danny’s radio crackled to life, “Major? We’re done here,” came Private Acone’s voice. She told him and Karim to return to town and secure the evidence.

“Lieutenant?” Danny was pleased when the young man responded immediately. “There’s a bookstore, come here now please.”

Danny reached up and ripped the poster down, not bothering to take in what was printed on it. Koralia naturally took up a covering position behind her, and the descended through a hole in the wall. There was a slight drop that Danny very gracefully fell down, then there was darkness. Behind her, Koralia lit her torch and the small hallway was illuminated.

It did not help the atmosphere one bit.

Danny breathed in the dust in the air, praying that whatever she was inhaling wasn’t poisonous. The torch was just powerful enough for Danny to make out a doorway at the end of the hallway. She motioned for Private Ng to stay back as she advanced. The thought occurred to her that this was the part in the horror movie that they typically started dying. Which, fantastic.

“That’s a laboratory door,” Private Ng whispered behind her, “the locks are specific.”

Danny took her at her word, and let the other woman go first. She heard Lieutenant Salazar calling for them from inside the bookstore. Koralia reached out to turn the handle, finding the distinctive locks not engaged. Ideas of the beast not being in control of their transformation flowed through Danny’s mind. She hoped that Private Ng was up to the task of identifying the creature. If Danny had to call LaFontaine or J.P. for help, she would be deeply pissed and there would be no more Mrs Nice Major.

Koralia threw the door open, letting Danny rush carefully into the room, rifle raised and eyes searching for any sign of life. The lights flicked on as she crossed the threshold, nearly blinding her. Danny stopped dead.

The lab might have been a sterile, scientific environment once. It wasn’t anymore. Blood splatter decorated all four walls, the floor, and the ceiling. Pieces of animals Danny couldn’t identify lay littered across every available surface. Danny felt Private Koralia Ng get almost unprofessionally close behind her, letting the slight infraction of protocols slide because she needed her expert on biological sciences eyes on the scene as quickly as possible.

“Lieutenant?” Danny called for Salazar without turning her head from the scientific slaughter. He was at her other side instantaneously, ever obedient. “Take some pictures and report this back to base. We have a hunt on our hands.”

If either of them felt Danny’s uncomfortable excitement at the prospect of something to find and fight, they didn’t comment, even quietly to each other. Salazar set about his work quickly and silently. Danny motioned for Koralia to get started on collecting the evidence they would have to present to Danny’s superiors.

Danny’s stomach turned again, she gave a quick ‘leadership-related’ excuse and left her two subordinates to their work.

  
  


 

* * *

 

 

 

  
Danny’s first contact with the press as a military officer under some fairly stringent confidentiality agreements wasn’t one she was likely to survive. Laura looked pissed, Danny tried real hard to blame her for the pressure she was putting on her. She couldn’t really expect Danny to get herself dishonourably discharged on her first mission for talking to a local news network/newspaper when she wasn’t explicitly given permission to do so.

Laura Hollis, tiny asshole journalist, was leaning next to the hollowed out hole in the wall leading down to the lab below. She was tapping away on her tablet with a stylus, barely aware of her surroundings. Danny would have to have many words with whichever one of her soldier’s had let her anywhere near their scene. If she had to guess, the blame would fall on Merrick. Unlike the rest of the unit, they were terrified of Danny’s human wife rather than the centuries-old vampire with a body count higher than the Special Forces branch combined.

Danny approached the vicious predator cautiously, taking care to keep her footsteps light and her breathing even. The Hollis Journalism Monster was known to attack at the slightest indication of a story. Danny had a crudely chipped out hole in the wall taped up and a uniformed soldier on the door of the abandoned bookstore, she might as well have put up flashing lights and sirens. She was immeasurably lucky that she had an entire military base to run to when her wives got angry.

“Hey Laura, who the fuck let you in here?” Danny resolved to give up on the stealthy angle, it never worked in the past and maybe a frontal assault would be best.

Laura startled violently enough that she juggled her tablet, Danny didn’t move to help. Laura had circumvented her soldier, she could handle replacing the damn device. “Danny! The one with the real big gun that looks like Rihanna and The Rock had a beautiful baby of muscles,” rambled Laura, fiddling with her stylus before eventually tucking it behind her ear. “Could not get out of my way fast enough.”

Danny sighed. There was no way she wasn’t getting fired for this. “Why are you here? I said I would tell you what we are willing to be put in print, and that’s an exclusive for you!”

That was not the right thing to say. Laura pulled herself up to full height, puffing up her chest in an attempt to look bigger and slightly more threatening. Danny felt that her murderous expression did that job for her, but there was no way she was giving her wife that kind of power.

“Are you unaware of how journalism works, Major Hollis?” Laura snarled, steel running through her words. Danny didn’t flinch, sense of duty taking over from her usually unfailing loyalty to her partners. “You might lie to me, or withhold important details that the public needs to know, and who knows what your superiors are going to ask you not to say?”

Laura held her hands up in surrender immediately as Danny’s face crumpled, stricken by her words. “You-”

“We talked about this! This is work and home is home,” she scrambled to backtrack on her own words, “I know that outside of this very specific kind of situation, you wouldn’t lie to me about this kind of thing, and I am never going to blame you for doing you job, okay?”

Danny swallowed the lump that welled up in her throat. “I’m going to ignore that you think I would ever,” she hissed, making Laura look tiny by pulling her shoulders back and setting her hands on her hips, “ever, let someone die by withholding information that might have saved them, regardless of what my superiors say. Merrick!”

Private Caron Merrick, letter-in of journalists, was at her side with scrambling feet and squeaking boots. “Ma’am?”

“Send Mrs Hollis a copy of your report, and do not let her in here again until we have fully investigated the scene,” she ordered with a disappointed edge to her voice. Laura’s affronted expression was worth the momentary pain her accusation had caused. “Go, Laura, and I will take you out for dinner tonight.”

Laura looked anywhere but Danny as she considered the offer.

“Major?” Private Ng called from inside the lab. She was the only member of the unit aside from Danny herself who could potentially stand to be in the gruesome room for an extended period of time, and she had barely left over the last five hours. There was always more evidence, in her own words. Danny kissed the top of Laura’s head, glaring at Private Merrick, daring them to say anything about her brief bout of unprofessional behaviour. They did not seem impressed. “You should probably see this.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The scent of rotting flesh hit her yet again, though it was hard to forget between forays into the lab. Danny struggled to keep her breakfast down, proud of Carmilla for interacting with the people at the bakery with relative politeness. She would know if Danny threw up and there was always a fifty-fifty chance that she would take it personally. Danny pushed through the nausea, and squared her shoulders so she wouldn’t show an ounce of weakness to Koralia.

“What do I need to see?” Danny demanded, immediately putting the other woman on the back foot. Private Ng reacted by tearing one of her pages of notes cleanly in two. Danny bit back a smirk, refusing to allow herself to enjoy control and power over another person. It felt like a crawling on her skin that she couldn’t stop.

“I’ve identified most of the,” Ng stopped to search for the appropriate term for what she was examining, “meat.”

Danny couldn’t stop her lip curling up in disgust at thinking of the potentially human flesh being described as such. “And?”

“Panthera, capra, and judging by the most likely kinds of those two, I’m going to take an educated guess and say some kind of snake,” she explained, immeasurably proud of herself for doing her job so efficiently. “Which makes this thing all the more threatening.”

“I know ‘panthera’ is big cats,” Danny didn’t mention that she knew this because she had married one and Laura insisted LaFontaine explain everything they could about the genus as a whole, “but what the fuck is a ‘capra’ and why does that all equal snake?”

Private Ng was more amused than anything at the Major’s adorably confused face. Sometimes she forgot the Major was hired for her skill in combat against the supernatural rather than her vast and unmatched knowledge of the various species, their defining features and their differences. “Not panthera as in panther,” Danny blushed at being caught out, “more likely is that it’s a lion. Capra is a goat, which implies a snake is missing.”

Major Hollis thought about it for a moment, and got there much, much quicker than Koralia was anticipating. She froze as Hollis stared at her oddly, as if she as trying to figure something out. “Artificially made chimera, really?”

Koralia shrugged, “that’s what lion plus goat plus snake tends to equal.”

Danny sighed. “You know where we can get a flying horse?”


End file.
